Demanding Ransom

Chapter NINETEEN



“What’s that?” I ask as Ran tosses his duffle bag into the bed of the truck and it clanks loudly against the metal ruts.

“It’s a snowboard, Maggie.” He snaps the tailgate into place and makes sure the board is situated in a way so it won’t rattle around once we’re on the road. “It’s a board that you ride on the snow with.”

I punch him in the gut. “Yeah, dummy, I know what a snowboard is. I’m just wondering why you’re bringing it.”

“Because there will be snow.” His eyes are so blue, and even when he smiles and they’re just slivers on his face, their intensity is still shocking.

“Yeah, I know there will be snow. I just don’t plan to actually go out in it.”

Ran yanks the keys from my hand and holds open the passenger side door to my truck so I can slide in. I shove my suitcase over with my feet to make room for them. “So you would choose sitting in a house with all those people you supposedly hate all weekend over riding down the slopes with me?”

I straighten my mouth and crease my brow. “Is it an option to do neither?”

Ran joins me in the cab of the truck and drapes his arm across the seat as he looks over his shoulder to back out of the driveway. “No, it’s not an option. Either you spend an incredible afternoon with me, learning how to navigate the slopes dusted in amazing, fresh powder, or you spend it with your lying mother, her annoying husband, and their perfect children—in your words, of course.”

“It really isn’t fair the way you phrased that, Ran.”

“Getting a taste of your own medicine, Little Miss Word Manipulator?” He squeezes just above my knee and smirks that unfair grin of his.

“Oh,” I say, mockingly, “I forgot to tell you. I took your suggestion and switched to linguistics for my major.”

“Very funny,” Ran says, his eyes focused on the road. The sky is overcast; threatening clouds hang over the city like a thin blanket of gray. I’m sure the higher up the hill we go, the more likely the chance for snow. I’m glad I decided to throw the chains in the back at the last minute. “What is your major anyway?”

“Undecided.”

Ran’s mouth opens slightly and he nods. “Why am I’m not surprised?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I shoot him a glare even though he can’t see it since his eyes are fixed on the road ahead. I’m pretty sure my tone indicates there is one attached to my words.

“You seem undecided about a lot of things.”

“Well, I’m definitely not undecided about the fact that you are incredibly—”

“Handsome,” Ran interjects, coasting the truck onto the freeway. He glances over his shoulder as he changes lanes and dares to give me a coy smile when his eyes meet mine on their way back to look out the front windshield.

“No, incredibly—”

“Irresistible.”

I huff loudly. “No. Incredibly—”

“Sexy. Geez, Maggie, will you just spit it out already?”

I try to muster a good comeback to throw at him, but he’s gotten me all disoriented with his assertions that he’s handsome, irresistible, and sexy, because he’s all of those things.

“Distracting. You’re incredibly distracting, Ran.”

“And you think you’re not?” He turns his head my direction. “I have to try to focus on the road for the next two hours and you go and wear your hair like that? Do you want us to get in an accident?”

“My hair?” I laugh, curling the end of my ponytail around my finger. There’s nothing at all special about my hair today. “This ponytail distracts you?”

“Your neck distracts me, Maggie.”

“Well, that’s just crazy.” I intentionally wrap a strand of hair around my finger slowly so he can see it this time. His lips purse into a disapproving line. “Honestly, I wore a ponytail because I didn’t take a shower this morning.”

“I thought we discussed your dirty neck situation already.”

“Shut it, Ran.”

He gives up the fight and drops his eyes back onto the stretch of highway ahead, keeping the steering wheel balanced between his hands and his knee. We’re in gridlocked traffic, everyone else in town heading to the snow for the holiday break, too. We’ll probably spend the better half of the day making a drive that should normally take us under two hours. The idea of being trapped with Ran in the truck for so long has never been such a welcome thought.

We soon discover that a working radio was not on the list of car buying criteria for Mikey when he selected the Ranger, because for over an hour we have nothing to choose from but two stations that seem to only play music from mariachi bands. Ran belts loudly in Spanish, repeating the words hola, uno, and burrito over and over, but in alternating octaves. He sounds more like a dying cat than a singer, but I’m sure I sound just about the same as I cackle uncontrollably.

“Hello one burrito?” I jeer in between fits of laughter.

“Just wait, it’ll be the next big hit.”

The track switches to a different song, but it sounds practically identical to the one we were just listening to, and I find myself humming ‘hello one burrito’ along in my head. “I wouldn’t be so sure of yourself.”

“Maggie, I’m nothing if not immensely sure of myself.” He leans his head toward me in emphasis. “And handsome, irresistible, and sexy—we’ve already confirmed all of those things.”

“I want to know more, Ran.” I stare out the window at the trees that blur past, their forms blended together with the earthy tones of the mountainside. Light dustings of freshly fallen snow coat their branches, and the temperature drops significantly lower the higher up we climb. I think a working heater should have been on the list of prerequisites for my new vehicle because the temperature in the cab can’t be any warmer than outside of it.

“What more do you want to know?” Ran asks, sliding out of his jacket while keeping a knee on the wheel. He stretches it out to me and I sling it over my shoulders, shrinking down into his body heat it retains. “I’m an open book.”

“Your tattoos,” I begin, feeling a hot blush creep up on my skin. It’s obvious to both of us that I’m thinking about him with his shirt off, and the way his mouth pulls up just at the side lets me know he clearly likes what I’m envisioning.

“My tattoos?”

“Yeah.” I pull the collar of his jacket all the way to my ears and tuck my hands deep into the sleeves. “What do they mean?”

The truck’s tires hug the curves of the road as they wind up the mountain. I try to stare straight ahead instead of out my passenger window because the sheer cliff that slopes off the shoulder immediately next to me lurches my stomach into my throat. It’s about the same feeling I’m experiencing as I recall Ran’s naked upper body, actually.

“Honestly, the drawings don’t really mean that much. They’re just sketches I did back in high school and I thought they might look cool on my arm.”

“Really?” I’m trying not to shiver all over, so I tuck my legs up under me and wrap Ran’s jacket around them, too. I’d be worried about stretching it out if it were my own jacket, but Ran is so much bigger than me that there’s plenty of room for my entire body to curl up inside his coat. “So you just wanted to permanently mark up your body with something that looked ‘kinda cool’?”

“No.” Ran’s biceps tremble and I’m sure he has to be just as freezing as I am, yet he doesn’t ask for his jacket back. It almost makes me feel guilty for wearing it, but I’m sure he’d deny it if I tried to offer it to him. “I wanted to prove to myself that needles didn’t bother me anymore.” His arms cross over one another as we round another tight curve and the dark design on his skin slips out from under his shirtsleeve. “I wanted needles to represent more in my life than the awful memories I’d always associated with them. I figured if they could draw something cool on my arm, then it might help me forget a little.”

Though I’m blanketed under his jacket, I slide my left arm out slowly and reach across the space between us. I don’t think he sees me, because when I cuff his sleeve and push it up over his shoulder, Ran’s frame tenses quickly before he relaxes under my touch. I run my finger along the designs, feeling the goose bumps that draw up under my nail.

“I don’t know. It sounds stupid.”

“It’s not stupid, Ran,” I say, outlining the curves and twists marked there. “It’s beautiful.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Ran shoves his sleeve back down over his shoulder and shifts his weight in his seat.

“No.” I pull my arm back to my side. “It’s beautiful that you think the way you do.” I ease into the warmth of his jacket. The snow has started falling steadily on the windshield and Ran flips the wipers on to push the flakes to the edges of the window. “I’ve never met anyone like you. Someone that doesn’t just sit back and complain about the pain in his life, but instead actively does something about it.”

Ran shrugs noncommittally. “I don’t know. I just like to create new memories to replace the bad, I guess.”

We drive for about a half an hour more. The snowfall is heavier and faster than earlier, and Ran says we should be fine to make it up the hill without chains because apparently the Ranger has four-wheel drive. About ten minutes ago, Ran jumped out of the truck when he realized his duffle bag was still in the bed, and it is now propped up between us, soaking wet and dampening the cold air in the cab. I’d offered his jacket back, but Ran turned me down, just like I knew he would. But watching him shiver in his driver’s seat is becoming unbearable, and the guilty comfort I have being snuggled in the passenger side can’t be enjoyed when I see how cold he really is.

Lifting his bag and dropping it onto the floor, I flip up the center armrest and slide into its place, latching my seatbelt across my lap. Ran draws his head back when he senses my movement. “What are you doing?”

“I’m feeling guilty.”

“About what?”

“Being warm while you’re obviously freezing.” I press into him, collect all the boldness I can muster, and fit my head onto his shoulder, wrapping my hands around his bare arm, rubbing them up and down to bring some semblance of heat to it.

“If you’re trying to get me all hot and bothered, Maggie, it’s working.” He smiles and presses his lips to my forehead.

“Ran?” I ask, still trailing my hands up and down the length of his bicep. He reaches over and drops his hand just above my knee, leaving it there. “Would it be weird if I said I was glad the accident happened?” His hand squeezes down lightly on my thigh. “Is it crazy to be grateful for something like that?”

“No, I get it.” The palm of his hand is hot where it rests.

“Because the accident wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t gotten the call about Mikey. And it feels awful to be thankful for it because it feels like saying I’m glad he has cancer, you know?”

I close my eyes and lean my head further into the crook of his neck. I feel his pulse against my forehead and it’s a soothing, settling force. “Nothing about that is awful.” Ran tilts his head so it rests just on top of mine.

“But it feels like it should be.”

“You need to stop punishing yourself and give yourself permission to be happy. You deserve it just as much as anyone else.”

We drive through the tunnel of white, the periphery completely covered in a snowy carpet that stretches as far as I can see. Ran doesn’t feel as cold as before, and I’ve burrowed closer into his side while his right hand remains affectionately on my leg. There’s no music now—even our mariachi bands don’t come through the radio anymore—and the silence around us is the most peaceful sound I’ve heard in a long time.

“I am, Ran.” I take in a deep breath, one that fills me with not just air, but a calm I didn’t know possible.

“You are?”

I thread my fingers over his in my lap. “Happy.”

We’re both staring out the window, at the new coating of snow, and it feels like we could drive forever just like this. Because even though there’s no heater and it’s impossibly cold, even though we’re heading to a cabin full of people that feel like strangers, even though Mikey has cancer and I have scars, for the moment, all the happiness I need is right here in this truck, sitting right beside me.

“Me too, Maggie.” Ran squeezes my knee once more, and says again, his voice soft and hushed, “I’m happy too.”